This has been sitting on my chest for a few months, now. I'm finally shoving it off.

[capri0mni]

Two reasons for the chest-clearing:

1. It's an excuse to use my long-lost default journal icon
   
2. Midnight is the start of (inter)-National Art-Making Month, and I want to clear as much space as possible for 31 days of mad creativity.

So here goes:

---

There was a Pete Seeger Album that was regularly played, in my house, during my childhood and youth, called Dangerous Songs. One of my favorite songs on the album was an English Version of an old German Folksong, and the words went thusly:

Die Gedanken sind Frei, my thoughts freely flower
De Gedanken Sind Frei, my thoughts give me power.
No scholar can map them no hunter can trap them.

No man can deny: Die Gedanken Sind Frei
No man can deny: Die Gedanken Sind Frei

I think as I please, and this gives me pleasure.
My conscience decreees this right I must treasure
My thoughts will not cater to Duke or Dictator

No man can deny: Die Gedanken Sind Frei
No man can deny: Die Gedanken Sind Frei

And should tyrants take me and throw me in prison,
My thoughts shall burst forth, like flowers in Season.
Foundations will crumble, and structures will tumble,

And Free Men will cry: Die Gedanken Sind Frei
And Free Men will cry: Die Gedanken Sind Frei!

I'd always trusted that it was a straightforward translation, as translations go (with allowances made for scansion and rhyme, and that sort of thing). But a few months ago, thanks to YouTube, I've found multiple versions of the song in the original language, translated by various people who are native German users.

And their translations, all remarkably consistant, except for a few variations of personal word choice and idiom, go thusly:

Thoughts are free, who can guess them?
They flee by like nocturnal shadows.
No man can know them, no hunter can shoot them,
with powder and lead: Thoughts are free!

I think what I want, and what delights me,
still always reticent, and as it is suitable.
My wish and desire, no one can deny me
and so it will always be: Thoughts are free!

And if I am thrown into the darkest dungeon,
all this would be futile work,
because my thoughts tear all gates
and walls apart. Thoughts are free!

So I will renounce my sorrows forever,
and never again will torture myself with some fancy ideas.
In one's heart, one can always laugh and joke
and think at the same time: Thoughts are free!

Not a single "flower;" no mention of personal "power" or "conscience" or the toppling of dictators.

And I must say: I'm disappointed.

But not in the original, 18th-19th century folk, who claimed this song as their own. No. I'm Disappointed in Arthur Kevess, who came up with the English version in 1950. He kept the melody and the refrain, and a few of the words, but he changed the Meaning of the original in order to fit his own personal philosophy. In fact, he changed the meaning to the opposite of the original, in spirit.

In the original:

Thoughts are free because they are private and secret and intangible as ghosts. And: "Doesn't matter what hardships you inflict on me on the outside, because there is no way you can take away the Happy Place inside my head! So, I choose to be Happy!"

In the Arthur Kevess version:

Thoughts are free because they are powerful weapons against any and all dictatorships, and nothing can stand in their way. And: "I will use my freedom of thought as a Crusader to free all of Mankind the world over!"

Now, it is true that a small band of philosophy students, calling themselves die Weiße Rose (The White Rose), used the Die Gedanken Sind Frei as a rallying song in their protests of Adolf Hitler and Nazism (and were executed for their trouble), and the English version of the song by Kevess is a powerful and fitting tribute to their courage (And I thoroughly understand why he was moved to use "flower" as a recurring image).

But --

It is not really a "translation" of a "traditional folk song."

And now that I know the differences, the fact that so many anglophone folk singers believe that it is a "translation" kind of makes my brain itch.

Comments

[jesse_the_k]

Translation criticism for the win!

(My father loved that song, and encouraged us to sing it around the piano. Unfortunately, he'd join in – yes, tone deafness really happens. He learned it in German; we had the Fireside Book of Folk Songs so sang this 180° translation.)

[capri0mni]

*bows* Thanks for sharing my brain itch. That makes it easier to bear.

I really should make a playlist (once I figure out how) of my favorite renditions of this song.

In this version a young woman sings it to a different melody (but, luckily, still in key). And one of the commenters (who, I'm assuming, is German), provided this brief history:

(Quote) 1848 was a revolution in Germany, the democracy dured unfortunately only a few time , when there were the parlament in the Pauulkirche or Pauls church. Then the revelotionars were put in jails. This song is about revolutionars in jails, who are singing "The thoughts are staying free, also if we are in the deepest cellar". It is very loved in Germany, especially in circles where people do not want again a dictature. It is a song about peace and democracy. Thank you for singing it. (Unquote)

So apparently, The White Rose was drawing on a century of tradition when they chose this song (Which could be why they chose it -- because it underlined their whole stance that "No, this Nazi Movement is not true to our German identity"). And the Kevess version did not veer very far from the original intent of the song.

But -- There are more ways to protest that shouting at the top of your lungs: "I'm Protesting! I'm the True Hero!" And sometimes, sneaky and quiet, and subversive is more powerful.

(And my mother was tone deaf. I'm afraid I really hurt her feelings, as a small child, when I asked her to please not sing me a lullaby, because she always sang "wrong notes.")

Down the musical path

[jesse_the_k]

Thanks for the link, but I must admit the performer is verging on tone-hard-of-hearing. No matter how it's translated, this line The thoughts are staying free, also if we are in the deepest cellar reminds me of one of my top-twenty songs: How Can I Keep from Singing (That's Pete Seeger's simple rendition of the 1860 hymn. The lines evoked are:
In prison cell and dungeon vile
Our thoughts to them are winging,
When friends by shame are undefiled
How can I keep from singing?

Re: Down the musical path

[capri0mni]

Well, mostly, I posted the link to the vid in order to give context for the comment.

And yes: "How can I keep from singing?" is another one of my favorites -- one of the ones I sing for myself. It's a good one to have in the personal store.

This is actually my favorite rendition, that I've found online:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jNSfHHM_b28&playnext=1&videos=bwYPASDD_1g

[spiralsheep]

And if I am thrown into the darkest dungeon,
all this would be futile work,
because my thoughts tear all gates
and walls apart. Thoughts are free!

Stone Walls do not a Prison make,
Nor Iron bars a Cage ;
Mindes innocent and quiet take
That for an Hermitage ;
If I have freedome in my Love,
And in my soule am free ;
Angels alone that sore above,
Injoy such Liberty.

Incidentally, I was reading an old thread over at mudcat last night and I realised you started it, heh.

[capri0mni]

Incidentally, I was reading an old thread over at mudcat last night and I realised you started it, heh.

Heh. Occassionally, a musical question has popped into my head, so I decide to do an "All" search of the threads on Mudcat. Then, I find just the sort of answer to the question I'm thinking, click on the thread, and realize that I'd already posted to it years ago...

BTW, what thread were you reading?

[spiralsheep]

I think the thread was about singing rounds? One day both of us will simultaneously have computers and connections good enough to sing together. :-)

[capri0mni]

Ah, yes. I remember when I was on a serious polyphony kick. It was in one of the books I'd recently read where the link was made between polyphonic music, and polythesitic religions, and whole worldview connections. :-)

Yes. Singing together would be wonderful. The microculture where I'm living now involves the playing of prerecorded music only, and then trying to talk over it .... even at live music concerts, between the times the musicians are on stage. *facepalm*

vielen dank

[callibr8]

That's German for "many thanks", if you didn't know.

I am grateful because I learned something today by reading your post. I did not know that the version of Die Gedanken Sind Frei that I have enjoyed for years was a transliteration, rather than an authentic translation. I too find the original more beautiful. Also more consistent with what I know of German culture and mindset (having studied the language and visited the country).

Now I want to find the entire original melody, and teach my harmony ensemble the *real* words!

Re: vielen dank

[capri0mni]

Here is my favorite rendition on YouTube, from Gari Belon (he has disabled embedding, but here is the link):
https://youtu.be/HYm3KghuuIc